Metal detectors are commonly found on food processing lines to assure that metal shards that represent a laceration hazard do not end up in food products. Similarly, pharmaceutical and biomedical device production are also vulnerable to not only the hazards associated with metal debris ending up in product streams, but also the prospect that such metal can degrade active pharmaceutical ingredients or serve as a potential source of infection. Numerous technologies are known to the art to detect spurious metal within a production line exist. These technologies include a transmitter coil-receiver coils for metal detection systems, systems that use radio frequencies, and magnetic field based systems. In recognition of the fact that some metallic materials are not ferromagnetic and simultaneously not particularly good electrical conductors, x-ray scanners and other electromagnetic field (emf) spectral region spectral detection techniques have been added to food and pharmaceutical product lines to facilitate the detection of a wider range of contaminants.
In spite of the advances in detection of spurious metallic shards in a food or pharmaceutical production line, existing production lines are poorly equipped to detect spurious plastic and other polymeric materials that may enter a food or pharmaceutical production line. This is problematic since such plastic materials not only have the ability to fracture into shards capable of causing a laceration but also with respect to pharmaceutical production, contain organometallic catalysts and plasticizers that can potentially degrade the efficacy of a therapeutic.
Servicing of a food or pharmaceutical production line currently has strict guidelines that require exclusion zones from which various material packaging components are excluded. In spite of these exclusion policies, plastic debris does enter production lines and with even a single piece of plastic entering a production stream, large quantities of otherwise usable product must be discarded. Rules regarding processing of ground meat are exemplary of those that require discard of the product if possibly contaminated. Common plastic packaging that is inadvertently brought into production exclusion zones include aerosol cans, grease cartridge tubes, grease tube caps, plastic fiber toweling, packing straps, pail lids, jar caps, and brushes.
Aerosol cans are routinely used in the food and pharmaceutical production industries to deliver lubricants, sealants and other substances to maintain operation of production equipment. A typical aerosol can is provided with a plastic lid mounted on top of the can to cover the aerosol spray button. To release the pressurized contents of an aerosol can, it is customary to remove the lid, hold the aerosol can in an upright position and depress the aerosol spray button in the intended direction of application. Optionally, a spray tube is joined to the spray button to direct an aerosol spray in a more concentrated pattern from the spray button aperture to the desired target. Such aerosol can lids, spray buttons, and tubes are typically formed through extrusion or injection molding using plastic materials such as polypropylene, acetal, nylon, or high density polyethylene. In using such cans in the context of a food or pharmaceutical industry production line, each of these plastic components of a lid, spray button, and spray tube have the possibility of dislodging from the aerosol can and entering the production stream. Once aerosol packaging components formed of plastic enter such a production stream, there is a limited ability to detect these components or fragments thereof in the course of production.
Thus, there exists a need for a plastic packaging component formed of a substance susceptible to detection by conventional metal detector, X-ray, or other electromagnetic spectral detection techniques to preclude such components from being lost in consumable products streams like those of food or pharmaceutical products.